Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2897 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 0.64 to 2.56 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Gen II Filters

Acquisition Data

5/22/2011 to 6/8/2011 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

Lum 375 min (25 x 15 min, bin 1x1 (best 26 of 56)

RGB 540 min (12 x 15 min each, bin 2x2)

Software & Processing

CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop CS3, Noel Carboni's actions.

eXcalibrator for (u-g), (g-r) color calibration, using 7 stars from the SDSS-DR7 database.

PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair column defects.

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject,  combine the sub exposures & selective deconvolution.

PixInsight for the LRGB combine, non-linear stretching and gradient removal.

PhotoShop for final tweaks and background noise reduction with the Noiseware Pro plug-in.

North is to the right.

The Tadpole Galaxy is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 400 million light years from Earth toward the northern constellation Draco. It is believed that a smaller galaxy crossed in front of the Tadpole and was then slung around behind. The strong tidal forces of this close encounter created the Tadpole's long tail. The tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive bright blue star clusters. The tail is expected to eventually break up into small satellite galaxies.